Work relaxations fail to hold migrants back
Most labourers are more concerned about boarding trains and buses to get back home, rather than returning to work
A day after the National Democratic Alliance government announced new lockdown norms, which will kick in on May 4, a labour contractor of a construction firm in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, swung into action to ensure that work begins on schedule.
The contractor reached out to 250-300 migrant workers living in a residential colony nearby and told them to move to the construction site of the firm, Iconic Shyamal, as the new guidelines announced by the Ministry of Home Affairs allowed construction activities in urban areas, provided workers stayed on premises.
However, most workers refused as they were looking to board trains to return home, rather than go back to their workplace. This is the result of paradoxical policy decisions by the Centre, which has on the one hand opened up transportation lines, such as buses and trains, to ferry migrant workers back to their villages, while on the other hand it has eased restrictions on economic activities.
“When we told the contractor that we want to go back home as train services are being resumed, he threatened us and said if we do not report to work, neither will we be allowed to reside in the contractor’s housing colony nor paid the pending wages,” 27-year-old Aehrar Alam, who belongs to Bihar, said.
Many workers, who belong to different states such as Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha, and reside in the same colony, told Business Standard that they wanted to return home rather than join work even if it came at the cost of their livelihood.
“There is a sense of fear. The contractor got us all tested for coronavirus three times since the middle of April. He hasn’t shown us the reports yet. We want to go back home first before we decide to come back to work,” 33-year-old Aalam said.
M S Unnikrishnan, chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s national committee of industrial relations, said micro, small and medium enterprises, where workers’ income levels were low, might find it difficult to retain workers in the short term. “But once they go back home and things stabilise in about three months, they will come back,” Unnikrishnan said.
He added that industries will have to incentivise workers to stay back by offering safe working conditions along with taking care of basic needs.
Trade unions said there were around a million migrant workers in the state. Vipul Mittra, additional chief secretary in Gujarat’s labour & employment department, said the state government is planning to send them back home in a phased manner and has lined up two special trains, one that will go to Uttar Pradesh from Ahmedabad and the second will depart for Odisha from Surat.
Starting Friday, the Railways has been running special train services to transport migrant workers, based on requests from states. Some states are also deploying buses to bring back workers stranded at relief camps.
And migrant workers are in no mood to stay back even if they see prospects of work resuming. Over 40 days of agony and hardship have left them with just one desire: To go home.
The desperation to return is palpable. On Saturday, police in Indore found 18 people travelling in a concrete mixer truck. They were travelling from Maharashtra to Lucknow.
In the national capital, where about 5,000 migrant workers are residing at a camp in Karol Bagh, working for realty firm Unity Group, contractors have been calling up to check whether they want to return home or resume work.
“Most of us have told our contractor that we want to go back home. The problem is that even if work resumes, from let’s say Tuesday, we do not know if our construction site comes within the containment zone and work comes to a halt again,” Anwar, a construction worker, who belongs to Katihar district in Bihar, said.
Another worry for labourers is that the number of workers at sites will be limited. According to the latest government guidelines, factories and establishments will have to resume with 33 per cent of workforce. “Not everyone will get work,” Anwar added.
Industry bodies reckon at a time when there is a shortage of workers to run units, reverse migration will impede the pace of economic activity.
Ramesh Mohapatra, president at Utkal Chamber of Commerce & Industry (UCCI) said, “The host states of migrant workers are constrained as they have to provide accommodation and food. Moreover, many non-resident labourers are willing to go back to their native regions,” he said, adding that this had put industries in a quandary as they look to restart production.
State governments, meanwhile, have taken steps to ensure migrants get the chance to return.
For instance, the Odisha government started a first-of-its-kind portal for registering migrant workers and has received 500,000 requests so far. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik initiated a dialogue with his counterparts in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh to bring back workers from those states.
Other states, however, are looking at the prospect of further shortage of labourers. The construction industry in Tamil Nadu has various projects pending and is on a strict deadline as works have to be completed before the monsoon arrives in the first week of June.
Sethunath M, chief executive officer at Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI), Kerala, said the exodus of migrants will impact construction.
Similarly, in Telangana the Centre’s decision to run ‘Shramik Trains’ has opened the flood gates for reverse migration. Till Friday, R Srinivas of Vasavi Constructions, who had a couple of projects in Hyderabad was hopeful of starting work once the lockdown is lifted.
The migrant workers he engaged had decided to stay put as he took care of them. However, things changed overnight as news of Shramik Trains spread like wildfire among migrant workers. “All of them have decided to go home now,” Srinivas said.
“Even God cannot stop them from going home,” said Kotam Raju, general secretary of Telangana Building Construction Workers Union
Fresh problems
For those migrants who returned home there are fresh problems that they have to cope with. According to the new guidelines, people who have completed inter-state travel through public transport have to stay under a mandatory quarantine of 14 days.
However, workers who completed the mandatory quarantine period in some states are unable to find work locally because of lack of skills and they do not want to return to cities. “Many tea gardens have opened and people are working in shifts. However, migrant workers are unable to find any employment in these gardens,” P Nita, a non-governmental organisation worker dealing with migrant workers in north Bengal, said.